The summer Slide

Driving my kids to and from summer camp has meant more meals out and more treats, than we tend to do in the school year. And yes, we try to mix it up, adding boba tea (no milk, no sugar, half lychee jelly) or small ice creams, but sometimes it's easy to spend a brief air conditioned afternoon with a true treat like the Snozen "Summer Sunset" pictured above. Noticing is a good first step toward change. So is doubling down on the planning. Getting to exercise (for me it's dancing at the gym when I can, or walking my daughter to camp when possible), cooking dinner in the afternoon (making friends with the slow cooker and rice cooker again and again) and some big time forgiveness and empathy. We're counting treats like this as multiple reds (although the shaving of the snow means it takes up more space on the plate than a small ice cream, there's lots of air too.)

When I joined my friend for a catered lunch of leftovers she encouraged me to take a picture. In addition to homemade tortillas and roasted tomato and tomatillo salsa, you see seitan with peas and mushrooms, black beans and cumin rice. Yum! She liked the roasted corn salsa best. And that was the recipe I threw together (lime juice, shallot, cilantro & corn) as I was reheating the other food! The hard part was the portioning. Eventually we packed up the leftovers and went out for a coffee. Most of the recipes are in some way from Terry Hope Romero's "Viva Vegan"

My daughter got a kick out of the shape of a carrot slice at a local Vietnamese restaurant. We shared vegetarian noodle soup and a noodle dish with shredded tofu and salad. We counted the fried tofu as red, all else yellow.

Title courtesy of Mollie Katzen, vegetarian cookbook author supreme. The recipe came from Vegetable Dishes I can't live without. The trick, besides cutting off the greens and steaming the bulbs, is a lot of garlic. I tossed the cooked beets in a warm pan with spray & garlic, then took them out and tossed the greens in the warm pan with more garlic til they wilted. Depending on the amount of water still on the washed greens you may not need anything else except a little salt.

Often (besides salad dressings) the hardest lower fat vegan substitute is what to put on toast or a bagel. One of my favorite toppings is cucumber, Meyer lemon, arugula, salt & pepper, or as in the photo below Affi's aubergine with tomato, cucumber & Meyer lemon. Yum!